Cero Reviews STARDOM Osaka Super Wars ~ Osaka Super Women's War

[cero2k]

STARDOM Osaka Super Wars ~ Osaka Super Women's War
December 18th, 2021
EDION Arena Osaka, Osaka, Japan

Pre-Show 3-on-1 Handicap Gauntlet Match
Syuri vs. Mai Sakurai, Waka Tsukiyama, Lady C - Squash
Since this was done gauntlet style, it wasn't anything other than three short squash matches, about 2 minutes each. Tsukiyama got pinned, C and Sakurai got tapped out.

Post-match - The masked attacked came out again, but this time, there were two and as usual, targeted the Cosmic Angels' rookies.

Artist Of Stardom Championship 10.000.000 Yen Unit Tournament First Round Match
Donna del Mondo (Himeka, Maika & Natsupoi) (c) vs. Team Marvelous (Maria, Rin Kadokura & Takumi Iroha) - 7.5/10
Good match, I was kinda disappointed that Marvelous got paired up with DDM on the first round, since it pretty much told you that they had no chance at advancing since they we're not going to win the Artis titles. The match was really good nonetheless. Himeka got the win over Maria with a powerbomb.

10.000.000 Yen Unit Tournament First Round Match
STARS (Hazuki, Koguma & Mayu Iwatani) vs. Cosmic Angels (Mina Shirakawa, Tam Nakano & Unagi Sayaka) - 7/10
Good basic match. Hazuki took most of the match from her team, I got the impression that Iwatani took it somewhat easy here because she's going all out in the finals. Hazuki pinned Shirakawa with a Hazukistral. As for the Angels, they all looked good, Sayaka and Mina look better and more established now when pairing up with more senior wrestlers.

Loser Must Join Opposite Unit Vs. Mask Captain's Fall 8-Person Tag Team Match
Queen's Quest (AZM, Momo Watanabe, Saya Kamitani & Utami Hayashishita) vs. Oedo Tai (Konami, Ruaka, Saki Kashima & Starlight Kid) - 7/10, but terrible finish.
I have mixed feelings about this match. Overall, I thought the wrestling was great, everything up until the end was great, the problem was that the final part of the match didn't make much sense considering how things ended.

To get things out of the way quickly, Syuri and Konami eliminated each other over the top rope a la Benoit/Big Show. Kashima eliminated Kamitani with Kishikaisei. Then AZM tapped out Ruaka with an armbar and eliminated Kashima with AZM Sushi. Up until this point, everything had made perfect sense, at this point you'd imagine that SLK quickly eliminates AZM and we go to SLK vs Momo all out.

Instead, what happened was that SLK went a LONG time 1-on-2 against both Momo and AZM and she held her own for most of that time, so not only do we have the heel in a disadvantage, but she's actually kicking butt. Now, if the whole idea was to have Momo turn on AZM and give the win to Oedo Tai, it was as easy as having Momo turn on AZM as soon as Kashima was gone, jump over the top rope, and letting SLK finish AZM for the win, you can do the whole chair attack after the match. What we got was a long 2-on-1 where Momo broke pins, tried to take out SLK , and it was only when she got a hold on a chair that she turned on AZM and got herself DQd. You can make the argument that Momo and SLK had planned to really hurt each other so that QQ's wouldn't suspect anything, but then how do you argue Momo breaking pins? or just straight up going so long before they take out AZM?

At the end, what we have is a really good match and story, that ended with a badly executed turn and finish.

Post-match - Starlight Kid cut promos welcoming Momo to Oedo Tai, and the latter acknowledging that she is Oedo Tai's Black Peach. Queen's Quest were completely heartbroken, they couldn't even bring themselves to fight back, their emotions got the better of them.

Artist Of Stardom Championship, 10.000.000 Yen Unit Tournament Final Ladder Elimination Match
Donna del Mondo (Himeka, Maika & Natsupoi) (c) vs. STARS (Hazuki, Koguma & Mayu Iwatani) - 8/10
This may had been one of the safest yet most reckless ladder matches I've seen, we had spots between having the wrestlers hold the ladder while two wrestlers exchanged strikes on top, but then they followed with Iwatani doing a moonsault from a totally vertical folded ladder on the corner. Another crazy spot saw Koguma do a plancha from the top of the ladder inside the ring, to the floor, taking out everyone.

The elimination aspect of this match was that you can eliminate people throughout the match, but things don't end until to get the briefcase, so in the worst of cases, your team gets eliminated and the opponent just reaches the briefcase without intervention. Maika would end up getting eliminated by Iwatani's crazy moonsault, while Himeka would eliminate Koguma later on to make things even again before heading to the finish.

At the end, it was Natsupoi who got the briefcase for her team, but she did it with the help of Himeka. A part of the story coming in was that Poi had a fear of heights and felt she was going to let her team down, but thanks to Himeka being there, Poi was able to reach high and get the briefcase, not only winning the money, but V3 in title defenses.

OVEARLL THOUGHTS
Really good show, it went by super fast with such a short card. It wasn't an all timer like the rest of the PPVs have been, but it was still worth your time. I loved the aspect that a tournament for money can still make up for a significant card.